Alex Yaw, '14: Promoting Healthy Lives, Transforming Hers

Spending a portion of the break between fall and spring semester
in Honduras with Global Medical Brigades each of the last three
years has given Alex Yaw the perspective to overcome the most
difficult day.

The second baseman for the Albion College softball team is quick
to say she wouldn’t be happy if she didn’t produce a
base hit in a doubleheader, but the conditions she has witnessed
while working to provide health care and development assistance to
poor communities in Central America are enough to cure any negative
feelings.

“I planned for my experience with Global Medical Bridges
to be a résumé booster,” Yaw said. “I
would go on this trip, it would be great for medical school
applications, and I would move on with my life and do X, Y and Z to
get to medical school.

“Going on the first trip [as a sophomore] was the most
amazing experience,” Yaw added. “It is so grounding to
go somewhere and realize how much you have—even being able to
take a hot shower or brush your teeth with water from the sink. It
takes you back to realizing how wonderful everything we have is. It
has helped me grow as a person to realize that what I’m
dealing with in the moment isn’t part of the grand scheme of
the world. My petty problems are nothing compared to what people
live with.”

Despite language barriers with native residents, Yaw has been
impressed by the gratitude shown for the assistance she and her
co-workers have provided. On a typical brigade, teams drive to
communities to set up clinics providing access to doctors, a
pharmacy and health education to children.

The experiences have been so transformative that Yaw says her
closest friends on campus are those with whom she has worked
alongside. She has since founded Albion’s chapter of Public
Health Brigades and served as the organization’s first
president.

“I like the [Global Medical Brigades’] goal—to
leave the communities and bring aid to other countries—so
when the entire holistic model is implemented in an area, the
entire program can move to another area,” Yaw said.

“Taking preventative measures is the goal [of Public
Health Brigades],” she added. “It’s to help in
more sustainable ways than coming in for a week and giving
medication. If we change the entire living situation, that will
eliminate the other issues they have. This year we participated in
a pilot architectural brigade where we helped build a medical
center.”

Global Medical Brigades and Public Health Brigades are just two
of the student organizations to which Yaw gives her time and
effort. She also holds leadership positions as a senior resident
assistant and as president of Order of Omega, the leadership
fraternity for Greek organizations. She formerly served as vice
president of education for Global Medical Brigades; secretary for
Phi Epsilon Kappa, the fraternity for individuals interested in
health industry careers; vice president of member education for
Delta Gamma sorority; and treasurer and vice president of student
ambassadors. She has also been involved in Relay for Life, Alpha
Chi Sigma and Psi Chi.

A detour from pre-med

Yaw changed her academic course when the liberal arts curriculum
exposed her to psychology. While she minors in cell and molecular
biology and chemistry, she is weighing her options between moving
on to graduate school in neuroscience or volunteering in an
organization such as the Peace Corps.

As she reaches the midpoint of her final semester at Albion, Yaw
is completing work on a thesis project she launched her junior year
that examines the relationship between sleep, nutrition and
athletic performance.

“I’m looking at sleep architecture and the kinds of
interactions that could be having with nutrition choices and
exercise,” Yaw explained. “Sleep architecture
encompasses how much time one spends in each of the stages of rapid
eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep, how many cycles the subject
goes through, and sleep latency —the amount of time it takes
the subject to get to sleep.

“I talked with [psychology professor] Tammy Jechura to
find our mutual research interests and we came up with a
project,” Yaw added.

Her project is being supported by the College’s Foundation
for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity.
Through FURSCA, Yaw learned she enjoyed the research
process—everything from reading for literature reviews to
writing the proposal to the Institutional Review Board for project
approval and data analysis.

As she sits a couple of months from graduation, Yaw reports she
has enough information to write three papers.

“I’m so glad I took the path I did to find my
passion,” Yaw said of her interest in circadian rhythms and
biology. “It’s a good Albion story because I was
dead-set on becoming a doctor, but the liberal arts experience has
exposed me to classes outside my discipline that have influenced
me. I’ve been able to do an internship off-campus. I’ve
been able to do undergraduate research and be funded to do that.
And I got to be a student-athlete while doing all of that. It has
been a huge part of my Albion experience.”